n't you,
Honor? Come and take a turn in the cloister; the fountain is stunning by
moonlight.'

No proposal could have been more agreeable to Honora; and Phoebe was
afraid of losing her chaperon, though she would rather have adhered to
her brother, and the barbs of that wicked little angler were tearing him
far too deeply to permit him to move out of sight of his tormentor.

But for this, the change would have been delicious. The white lights and
deep shadows from the calm, grave moon contrasted with the long gleams of
lamp-light from every window, reddened by the curtains within; the
flowers shone out with a strange whiteness, the taller ones almost like
spiritual shapes; the burnished orange leaves glistened, the water rose
high in silvery spray, and fell back into the blackness of the basin made
more visible by one trembling, shimmering reflection; the dark blue sky
above seemed shut into a vault by the enclosing buildings, and one
solitary planet shone out in the lustrous neighbourhood of the moon. So
still, so solemn, so cool! Honora felt it as repose, and pensively began
to admire--Owen chimed in with her. Feverish thoughts and perturbations
were always gladly soothed away in her company. Phoebe alone stood
barely confessing the beauty, and suppressing impatience at their making
so much of it; not yet knowing enough of care or passion to seek repose,
and much more absorbed in human than in any other form of nature.

The music was her first hope of deliverance from her namesake in the sky;
but, behold, her companions chose to prefer hearing that grand
instrumental piece softened by distance; and even Madame Hedwig's
quivering notes did not bring them in. However, at the first sounds of
the accompaniment to the 'Three Fishers' Wives,' Owen pulled back the
curtain, and handed the two ladies back into the room, by a window much
nearer to the orchestra than that by which they had gone out, not far
from where Edna Murrell had just risen, her hands nervously clasped
together, her colour rapidly varying, and her eyes roaming about as
though in quest of something. Indeed, through all the music, the slight
sounds of the entrance at the window did not escape her, and at the
instant when she should have begun to sing, Phoebe felt those black eyes
levelled on herself with a look that startled her; they were at once
removed, the head turned away; there was an attempt at the first words,
but they died away on her lips;